Curious Grade for Teachers: Nearly All Pass

In past years teachers were being assessed for 20 minutes once a year now there are more components to teacher evaluations.

Across the country education reformers and their allies are looking to change how teachers were being graded. More than half the states require a new teacher evaluation system. These new teacher evaluations were made to provide meaningful feedback and to weed out the weak performers.

How does this new system work?

Teachers are rated on student progress, including their test scores, and observation by principals or others.

However, some people argue that this system is faulty because it is altered all of the time. Jackie Pons, the schools superintendent for Leon County, says “We have changed proficiency standards 21 times in the last six years,” According to Grover J. Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, teacher variations affect student academic growth.

People that support this system state that “We are seeing improvements in practice,” he said, noting that 400 teachers had been fired as a result of the new system, and several hundred had left voluntarily after weak ratings.”